EL NINO: Stormy Weather for People and Wildlife, Now available as an E-Book

My book, El Niño: Stormy Weather for People and Wildlife is now available as a Kindle book on Amazon. For readers age 10 and up.

Drought in Southeast Asia, brutal storms in Australia, and spring-like temperatures in the northeastern United States--all of these seemingly unrelated events are caused by El Niño. Disrupting weather all over the globe every three to seven years, El Niño is second only to the change of the seasons in its influence on the climate.
El Niño is the name given to the unusual increase in ocean temperatures along the Peruvian and Ecuadorian coasts that is part of a larger pattern of changes in wind and weather throughout the Pacific region and beyond. With El Niño come violent storms and upsets in the global food chain that dramatically affect both humans and wildlife.
With the use of photographs, charts and maps, this updated edition of El Niño: Stormy Weather for People and Wildlife makes clear how this remarkable weather pattern is formed, how scientists track it, what its effects are, and why following its path is of such importance.

Originally published by Clarion Books as a hardback book in 1998, El Nino: Stormy Weather for People and Wildlife is an Accelerated Reader book. You can look for it in your library.

GIRAFFE, with photos by Richard Hewett, Now Available at StarWalk Kids

Informative and engaging, Giraffe offers a close-up look at this gentle giant of the African plains. A clear text and forty extraordinary full-color photographs highlight the giraffe’s unusual physical features and present a fascinating view of its day-to-day life and behavior, both in captivity and in the wild.
My book, GIRAFFE, originally published by Morrow Junior Books, is now available as a digital book at StarWalk Kids and also soon at Amazon as a Kindle book. It is illustrated with captivating photos by Richard Hewett. I am thrilled to see this book available again.  Through the month of July you can read all of the books in the StarWalk Kids catalogue for free.  It is a great opportunity!

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY Review of Giraffe

Most photos of giraffes are interesting: that powerful neck and the long slim body that go with it make every movement unusual. Here they crane toward their favorite food leaves from the acadia trees, posing awkwardly to drink water without tipping over in one picture, then galloping gracefully with all four legs off the ground in the next, twisting around in a knot for a drink of mother's milk. The concise text offers a general introduction to the giraffe and includes a close-up look at a newborn calf young giraffe. Arnold also passes on other information, like the animal's zoological name, which translates to "camel leopard." Hewett's well-placed, full-color photos reveal both the elegant and goofy sides of the giraffe. These two have collaborated on Koala, Kangaroo and, more recently, Zebra. Ages 7-10.

Summer is SUN FUN time! Easy-Read Activities on Kindle

SUN FUN: An Easy Read Activity Book by Caroline Arnold.  Here is the perfect book to inspire activities to do with your kids, grandkids, or students, on a hot summer day! 
     Did you know that you can tell time by the sun, cook with the sun, and make pictures with the sun? This book for children ages 5 to 9 has ten fun activities that use energy from the sun, including making a sun clock, shadow puppets, and sun reflectors. From an ice cube race to learning how to watch a solar eclipse, this book uses easily found materials and simple directions to learn about the sun and solar energy.
     I wrote and illustrated this book in 1981.  Many of the projects were ones that I did with my own children and their friends (who became models for my drawings for the book.)  The book has long been out of print but is now available in digital format as a Kindle book on Amazon and at StarWalk Kids.  Have fun and stay cool!
You can preview the book in this video on YouTube about how to make a sun clock. 
     Illustration note:  This book was illustrated back in the days of preseparated art.  I had only three colors to work with--black, red, and yellow--and had to create a separate drawing for each color.  I worked on a light table to make sure that the images for each color would line up (or register) when the pages were printed. In the printing process, the colors combined to make the final image.
Note:  This is an updated reposting of an early blog.

StarWalk Kids Review on SLJ EBook Toolkit

StarWalk Kids Media, which features nine of my books in its catalogue and will soon have more, received an extremely positive technical review (including a video walk-through) this week (January 9, 2013) from SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL, the most influential U.S. publication for the institutional buying audience.

Teachers will appreciate the simple yet robust toolkit built into the StarWalk Reader, which includes the ability to highlight, add notes, zoom in or out, and jump to a page by either entering a page number or mousing over the bottom of the screen to reveal page thumbnails and selecting any of them. Educators and parents can also use StarWalk’s advanced search feature to browse the collection by Lexile level, alphabetic reading level, CC standards, and other criteria.

Here is the link to the whole article.

For more information about StarWalk Kids and to sign up for a free trial, visit www.StarWalkKids.com.